About Me

Elephant Shielding Dog — “Elephant and Dog Sit Under the Rain” by Mike Kiev (used with permission)

As of Feb. 21, 2024

Published or accepted (printed poems are not available online)

[online] In OPEN: “Cutting Back” and “Warnings” (July 2021)

[online] In Brevis: “What Is Not There” (July 2021)

[in print] In Oberon (issue 19) “Rocking Chairs” (Winter 2021)

[online] In The Woolf: “Bastille Day 2021” (Winter 2021)

[e-book] In Vultures & Doves (Valiant Scribe): “Nocturne No. 2” (Winter 2021)

[online] In The Ekphrastic Review: “What Hides” (31 Dec. 2021)

[online] In Fauxmoir: “Aspiration” (debut issue 21 December 2021)

[online] In Apricity: “History 1961”

[online] In Evening Street Press & Review: “Hungarian Rhapsody,” “The Baseball Mitt,” “No Word,” and “Nocturne No. 3: Little By Little” (sometime in 2022)

[online] In Neologism Poetry: “In Glory” (November 2021 issue)

[online] “Eliot Then and Now” (a personal essay) in Exchanges (Autumn 2021), ed. John Caperon, the newsletter of the T. S. Eliot Society (UK)

[in print] Nothing Divine Dies, The Poetry of Nature of Vita Brevis Press: “Age” (December 2021)

[online] in New Note Poetry: “One Long Night In New York” Winter 2021

[online] in the Decadent Review: “Again and Again: Philomel” (23 Dec. 2021), “Cauchemar” (24 March 2022)

[online] in Provenance Journal: “Unpronounceable,” “His Journey,” and “Late Winter in Connecticut” (Dec. 2021)

[print] in Cerasus Magazine: “Winter Roses” and “I Stole Pictures” (Winter Special Edition Jan. 2022)

[online] in Native Skin: “Coming To America” and “Young Woman’s Song 1968” (Issue 3, Feb. 2022)

[online ezine] The Poeming Pigeon (published by The Poetry Box): “Permanence” (Fall 2022)

[online] in Library Love Letter: “Bookish” and “If You Would Know Me” (February 2022)

[online] in Poetic Sun: “Correspondence” (March 2022)

[online] in Multiplicity: “Winter Solstice” and (accepted & to be published as a reprint) “Winter Roses” (published as “Against The Grain”) and “Coming To America” (published as “Heart of a Father”) – published in Summer 2022 (issue 4)

[print] in Midwest Quarterly (June 2022) –“Fountain”

[online] in Etched Onyx: “Ylang Ylang,” “Confusion,” “Fade,” “Morning,” and “Old Friends” – published in Spring 2022; also podcast (see link)

[finalist] in Kallisto-Gaia Press Saguaro Prize 2022 – chapbook Dead Men Tell Such Tales

[print] in Ponder Review – “Accident Survived” in vol.6, issue 1

[online] in Hawai’i Pacific Review (May 2022) – “Once”

[print & online} in Brushfire (May 2022) – “Waking”

[print & online] in Slab – “Nothing Lasts Forever” (p. 23) and “Permanence” (p. 13) [reprint](Issue 17, Nov. 2022)

[fiction] one of four finalists in the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest in Historical Fiction 2022.

[online] in Wrath-Bearing Tree Literary Magazine (April 2023) – “Naught,” and reprint of “Accident Survived”

[print] in Musings (Fall 2022, Premiere issue) – “Coming Clean”

[online] in Young Ravens Literary Review (Issue 17) – “Being Old”

[online] in riverSedge (Issue 35 Winter 2022) – “Disposable”

[print] in boats against the current (Fall 2022) – “Our Place”

[online] in The Hyacinth Review – “What Is Not There” (March 27, 2023, reprint) and “Spirit” (January 13, 2023)

[print] in ellipsis. . . literature and art – “A Comic Dialogue” (April 21, 2023)

[online] in Loch Raven Review – “You” (November 2022)

[online] participation in online Poetry Reading, “At Any Age” hosted by Baypath Creative Writing Program – November 16, 2022. One of six writers invited to read from work published in Multiplicity, Issue 4. Poems read were: “Heart of a Father,” “Winter Solstice,” and “Against the Grain.”

[online] in The Courtship of Winds – “A Quartet of Etudes” and “Ergo Sumus” (Winter 2022)

[print] semifinalist in Brick Road Poetry Press Book contest (Jan. 2023) for manuscript “Lessons From the Garden, Love, and History”

[print] “Gifts” and “Kneading” in the Spring 2023 issue of El.Portal

[online] “Karma” in the April 27, 2023 issue of Sage Cigarettes Magazine

[print] “Getting Here: The Bronx to Austin Texas” chapbook semifinalist in Eggtooth Editions Chapbook Contest (March 2023)

[print] semifinalist in Elixir Press Book contest (Jan. 2023) for manuscript “Lessons From the Garden, Love, and History” (April 2023)

[print] semifinalist in Wolfson Press chapbook contest (April 2023) for manuscript “Getting Here: The Bronx to Austin Texas”

[print] “At A Party of Mourning Doves in Austin Texas” in Connecticut Poetry Review (August 2023)

[online] “Bronx Girl’s Subway,” “Room of Dreams,” “Vocal Poem,” “Performer,” and “Rusty” in A Thin Slice of Anxiety (May 2023)

[print] “Not Poetry” and “Poetry Reading” in Hedge Apple (2023)

[print] Almanac of Reckoning Chapbook (Georgetown, KY, 2025).

[print] “Dawn Yard in March” in Inverted Syntax (Feb. 2024)

[print] “Lady Spring” in The MacGuffin (Vol. 39, #3)

[online] “Oak” in Delta Poetry Review (June 2024)

[print] “Universal” in Steam Ticket Journal (Vol 27)

My Philosophy

I believe in goodness and compassion; however, I also believe that the world is too often a dark and cold place. We need moderation in all things: Taoism emphasizes that, and I try to balance on that slender line between light and dark, good and evil, right and wrong.

I am a retired college professor (Professor Emeritus of English 2005) who continues to enjoy reading, computers, and writing. (I earned my Ph.D. from Fordham University.) In retirement, I’ve been able to pursue my personal interests (some of which remain “academic”), including a wider reading of T.S. Eliot and the scholarship about his works (and him), and creative writing. In the past, I’ve published textbooks on poetry and film, as well as a short story. More recently, I’ve completed a novel and published a number of poems.*

One significant event of my life was, in 2016, the death of my adult son, Luke, who succumbed to a particularly virulent form of brain cancer, glioblastoma; it was thirty-one days from diagnosis to death. During his illness, he turned forty-three: he lived only two weeks at that age. We never expect to outlive our children, nor do we want to. I set up this website not only to look backwards but also to give Luke a future insofar as I can cherish him through these pages, talking about the subjects that interested him, telling part of his story.

It has taken me more than four years to understand and learn to live with the grief of losing my only child, but I have finally done so and, as President Joe Biden says, I now remember my son mostly with smiles now, rather than tears. It is a difficult journey.

*Enjoying the Arts: Poetry, and Enjoying the Arts: Film (both NY: Richards Rosen Press); “The Balikbayan,” in Philippine American Short Stories (Giraffe Books); list of published poems (with links) updated here periodically: